Kaeleigh Stroud using VR headset
Author: Kaeleigh Stroud | Major: Apparel Merchandising and Product Development | Semester: Spring 2025
My name is Kaeleigh Stroud and I’m an Apparel Merchandising and Product Development student in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences. Over the course of the 2025 spring grant term, I worked alongside my mentor, Dr. Eunjoo Cho, in the department of Human Environmental Sciences, to obtain data for my thesis, researching the future of sustainable fashion. My thesis explores the potential of virtual reality (VR) technology to influence consumer behavior while also facilitating eco-friendly fashion consumption. The primary focus of my study is to explore how VR technology affects consumers’ utilitarian (function-driven), hedonic (enjoyment-driven), and social (identity-driven) values, and how these values, in turn, affect consumer satisfaction. Overall, this research aims to demonstrate how VR technology can serve as an influential tool for reshaping consumer behavior, while fostering a more sustainable approach to fashion.
I found my mentor, Dr. Cho, before I settled on a topic for my thesis. I admired the previous research she had done, and together we decided to research the impact of VR within fashion shopping. I thought VR was an important topic because I believe it’s the future for the fashion industry. As technology progresses, VR will become more common to use, so I believe it’s important to understand its influence on consumer behavior. As Dr. Cho and I were researching the impact of VR on consumer behavior, we saw articles that tied VR to sustainability. With the growing importance of sustainability within the fashion industry, we thought it was necessary to explore the potential of VR as a sustainable shopping tool.
In January 2025, Dr. Cho and I began developing the research design for this study and submitted documents to obtain IRB approval. I was able to get IRB approval in early March after some revisions, and that is when I began to collect data. The honors college was already in possession of 20 VR headsets which I was able to use for my study. I set up the study in a classroom in the HOEC building, which was where I recruited the majority of my participants. Due to participants having to come in person to complete the study, it was difficult to have people show up at first. With the help of my mentor along with faculty members, Ms. Stephanie Hubert, Dr. Isabel Whitehead-Adams, and Dr. Sarah Hixson, I was able to recruit participants from their classes. They helped me recruit students by offering extra credit and letting them perform the study during their scheduled class times. For the research design, I found a 3D online store in the app Roblox that simulated a mall shopping environment. Using the VR headset, participants would be able to explore the 3D mall by visiting different stores, trying on clothes, and interacting with other avatars before completing an online survey. The entire study took 10-15 minutes to complete.
By the end of March, I finished collecting data and was ready to analyze it to determine the results of the study. My mentor, Dr. Cho, helped me decipher the data using EFA and multiple regression analysis. The results demonstrate that sustainable shopping significantly influences consumers’ perceptions of utilitarian, hedonic, and social values in 3D online shopping, highlighting sustainability as a key factor of consumer behavior. It also showed that consumers’ perceptions of utilitarian, hedonic, and social values had a positive influence on overall satisfaction, with hedonic having the greatest impact. This emphasizes that VR emerges as a powerful tool for creating both sustainable and engaging online shopping experiences.
In the future, I plan to finish writing up my honors thesis paper. I hope to go further and expand more in the literature review section. I also plan to revise the methodology section to reflect some changes that we made when performing the study. In addition, I aim to finish writing the results, discussion and conclusion, and limitations and future research sections of the thesis. Finally, I plan to attend a conference to present my findings during the upcoming fall semester.